By joining the cooperative, you agree that you understand the following statement and Terms of Service:

Acting as the agent of producer members, Massachusetts Local Food posts and publicizes the products that Massachusetts producers have for sale, receive orders, provides a way for products to be delivered to other members of the cooperative, collect from the customers and forwards the payments to producers.

Acting as the agent for customer members, we provide them a catalog of available local food products that includes information about how and where the product was grown and processed. We receive their orders and notify the appropriate producers, arrange for the food to be delivered, receive and process their payments. For both producers and customer members, we provide a basic screening of products and producers based on our published parameters, and education and training regarding the use and the advantages of local foods.

For some of our producer members, we are agents that facilitate farm gate sales of their products. For other producer members, we facilitate off-farm sales or sales of processed products.

The essential business of the cooperative is to provide a marketplace where willing buyers and sellers can meet. At no time does the cooperative ever have title to any of the products. We have no inventory. The products that go through our distribution system are owned either by the producer, or by the customer who purchases “title” to the product from the producer. All complaints should first be brought to the attention of the producer, unless it is a situation where the cooperative itself is at fault (such as broken eggs due to poor packing). If a successful resolution cannot be found by the affected producer and customer members, the cooperative’s arbitration procedure can be invoked.